North Rock Commences Drilling
Metalcorp begins North Rock drilling
2005-05-04 10:24 ET - News Release
Mr. Aubrey Eveleigh reports
METALCORP LTD.; DRILLING COMMENCES ON THE NORTH ROCK COPPER-NICKEL PROPERTY
Metalcorp Ltd. has commenced drilling on the North Rock copper-nickel property, located near Fort Frances, Ont. This phase 1 drill program will test the depth extension of the known Beaver Pond zone, with at least 11 drill holes, totalling approximately 3,000 metres.
The North Rock property is underlain by the 20-kilometre-long Grassy Portage mafic intrusion, which is known to contain several magmatic copper-nickel sulphide deposits. The largest and economically most significant of these deposits, the Beaver Pond zone, has a historical resource estimate, based on shallow diamond drilling and limited amounts of underground development work, of 1,020,458 tons grading 1.2 per cent copper, over a strike length of 400 metres and to a vertical depth of just 90 metres. The historical tonnage estimates were calculated in 1973, and are not current. They should not be relied upon and do not comply with National Instrument 43-101.
The Beaver Pond zone remains open in all directions and the current program will focus on testing its depth extensions below the 90-metre level. One deeper hole, drilled in 1970, intersected 2.21 per cent Cu over 11.1 metres at a vertical depth of 175 metres, indicating potential for delineating additional resources at depth. Other significant drill intersections, reported by Noranda, from within the Beaver Pond zone include: 4.3 per cent Cu over 8.1 metres; 4.1 per cent Cu over 7.8 metres; 3.4 per cent Cu over eight metres; 1.5 per cent Cu over 21.3 metres; and 1 per cent Cu over 55.5 metres. It is important to note that Noranda did not report assays for nickel, cobalt or PGE. However, recent grab sampling of a 10,000-ton surface stockpile of ore material, recovered from underground development, yielded assays up to 8.9 per cent Cu, 0.8 per cent Ni, 0.05 per cent Co, 1.6 grams per tonne Pt, 0.7 gram per tonne Pd and 0.7 gram per tonne Au. Although grab sample assays are typically not representative of the overall grade, these results do confirm the presence of significant nickel, cobalt, PGE and gold values associated with the copper mineralization in the Beaver Pond zone.
Following the phase 1 drill program, the company will be carrying out a summer program of geological mapping, prospecting and ground geophysical surveys to follow up on the many electromagnetic conductors detected on the property by the recently completed AeroTem airborne geophysical system. The highest-priority conductor, which has a coincident magnetic anomaly, was detected in the vicinity of the East zone, a little-explored area located 1.2 kilometres northeast and along strike from the Beaver Pond zone. Only two drill holes were completed in the East zone by Noranda, and one of these reportedly intersected 0.43 per cent Cu and 0.04 per cent MoS2 over a 20-metre core length. Prospecting work carried out in 2004, resulted in the discovery of several new showings of copper-nickel mineralization in the area of the East zone. Grab samples from these showings returned values up to 1.7 per cent Cu, 0.2 per cent Ni, 0.9 gram per tonne Au, 0.6 gram per tonne Pd and 0.4 gram per tonne Pt. A second phase diamond drilling program is scheduled for later this summer to test this zone and associated electromagnetic conductors, as well as other priority targets generated during the summer program.
The North Rock drilling program is being carried out under the supervision of Michel Dumoulin, PGeo, and managed by Allan MacTavish, MSc, PGeo, the qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Core is split and sent to ALS Chemex Labs for analysis by ICP-AES. Metalcorp routinely introduces standards and blanks into the sample stream.
Metalcorp has also granted 690,000 incentive stock options to directors, officers and consultants of the company, exercisable at a price of 35 cents per share for a five-year term. This is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.